The Spirituality of Aging – by Dr. Toni LaMotta
The Aging Process as a Teacher of Spirituality
Lately half the ads you see on TV or in the magazines are Anti-aging products. Hopefully, if you are sitting here today you are NOT ANTI-AGING! It’s time to teach the world as well as ourselves to learn a new perspective – and come to understand the Imponderable Lessons in the process of growing older itself… I believe that the aging process itself is an opportunity for spiritual development and it is part of our task here today to look at ways to help make that a reality.
Aging can be an opportunity to awaken to the Inexpressible Truths that have been part of our lives and our Knowing but not yet fully experienced.
There is so much more to life than what we can perceive with our senses and know with our reason. It is easy to get lost in what we think is the “TRUTH” simply because it is something we are experiencing. And yet, life takes on the greatest meaning when we come to realize that there is so much more than what appears. Perhaps that’s what true spirituality is after all. It’s coming to deeply KNOW that there is a Perceiver behind everything we perceive. There is a Knower behind everything we know and that the only true Reality is that which endures forever. Basically, it is seeing life from the ‘soul’s perspective and ultimately coming to recognize our Oneness with all of Life. In essence, that is the aim of all spiritual growth or development. And it is perhaps the greatest work of the aging process itself.
True transformation is moving from a limited here and now view of all that is to a view that helps us in all situations and circumstances to say, “I am more than this.”
It is important first of all to address the fears and beliefs we have around aging and learn some techniques to address these. I like to lead people through a process called FEAR TO FAITH which helps them truly face the fears they may have and look at what it is doing in their lives in order to release them and live more freely. I also use a technique called EFT – Does everyone know what that is? Perhaps if we have time at the end, I can teach it to you. It’s very simple.
I also love to lead people in doing a life review. This can be done through a scrapbook of picture or a series of journal techniques. The purpose of a life review is to complete anything from our past that might need forgiveness and reconciliation. It also helps us find the gems in our past that are signposts of where there is still life to be lived more fully.
I also truly believe that we can look at the aging process itself and how it can support us on this spiritual journey.
As I continue to age and work more and more with people from midlife and beyond, I have noticed that when approached consciously, the aging process itself can truly foster spiritual transformation. No matter what age you are right now, I invite you to explore your own experience and what you are learning
With a shift in attitude, we can discover that in life’s second half — or fourth quarter, the very experiences we have during the process of aging itself are meant to be a call and an opportunity for spiritual growth. The changes we experience as we age can become a source of discouragement and complaint, or we can use them as a source of spiritual inspiration and even transformation.
To age consciously, rather than deny what is happening, we need to develop spiritual resources to adapt and begin to look at EVERYTHING that we experience as a Gift inviting us to take a deeper look at what life is calling us to become.
One of our basic needs in life is to find meaning and purpose. Like the dragonfly that doesn’t get it’s true colors until it reaches maturity, sometimes it is only when we have lived a full life and become more conscious, that our true soul’s purpose and our life’s deepest meaning begin to appear. Many of us, when younger, confused our work with our purpose – although for some they may have overlapped. Our purpose is not necessarily the way we make money in this world, it is more about the reason our soul decided to incarnate. It takes a bit of living to discover what that is for most of us.
So – one of the exercises that I believe is most important for us as we age is to do some work to find out What is the purpose of OUR life?
The renowned spiritual teacher, Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert, April 6, 1931) an American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now and the more recent work, Still Here: Embracing Changing, Aging and Dying suggests that one purpose is to learn to grow old well.
He asserts that some of his greatest growth has taken place since he had a stroke at age 65. “I realized that stroke was grace,” “I had been superficial and arrogant and the stroke helped me to be humble. I had gotten power from helping people and now I need help for everything. That was the grace. The stroke happened to the ego, and when I could witness the pain, my life got better.”
Fortunately, most of us do not have to have something as dramatic as a stroke to learn spiritual lessons. For example, we can learn mindfulness as we find our bodies slowing down and as friends, family and the media caution us more and more about being alert lest we become one of the statistics of those who have had a fall. Consciousness, after all, is all about being alert and is one of the most important ways of keeping ourselves balanced. Being conscious is synonymous with living in the present.
All spiritual teachings tell us that the most important lesson is to be in the NOW, to live in the moment and to learn to accept Whatever IS rather than worrying about what could be or was.. So much of the ‘pain’ of the aging process is because we are holding on to who we were rather than embracing who we are at the moment.
A sign of spiritual maturity comes when we don’t split everything up according to what we like and what we don’t like, what we label as good or bad. I’ve been practicing living without judgment lately – making sort of a contest of it – and trust me, it isn’t easy. So much of our lives are filled with judgments! Wow – this one is a challenge for sure.
The lesson here is to accept what is – without wishing to change it or have it be any different than it already is. All spiritual teachers point the way to learning how to leave the moment open, to let it be what it is in itself, and let it speak to you. We miss an opportunity for transformation by tightly holding on to who we were. Besides, the real spiritual truth is that we were never really who we thought we were anyway, so what are we holding on to?
Perhaps that’s some of the gift of memory loss as we age. We have to live more in the moment! Now that we can’t remember details so well, it’s also easier to allow ourselves to forgive and forget and let our hearts expand. Forgetting can actually become an art form when we allow it. I believe that when our memories fail us, it is a reminder to seek out what is really important and I have adopted a belief that if I can’t remember it, it can’t be that important. It’s actually very freeing.
There are lots of things that are just not worth remembering. Somehow I think our souls know that and allow us to forget.
We learn the art of letting go or what spiritual teachers call surrender. This can happen, for example, as we let go of roles –perhaps redefining our role as parents as we experience an empty nest, or releasing our work identity as we retire or retread. Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, writer and mystic – said the way we have structured our lives, we spend our whole life climbing up the ladder of supposed success, and when we get to the top of the ladder we realize it is leaning against the wrong wall—and there is nothing at the top. As we experience aging, we have to let go of all of the false agendas, unreal goals, and passing self-images. It is all about letting go. The spiritual life is more about unlearning than learning.
As an adult educator, I have studied various age-stage theories and in the past had at least an intellectual understanding of the lessons to be learned and things to be ‘achieved’ at each age and level of life. During our earlier years, life is all about doing, achieving and accumulating and we find as we age that we long to live a simpler, more clutter free life. As we age, acquiring no longer seems as important. In fact, most people I know are shedding and releasing and downsizing or right-sizing. Simplification becomes more attractive and a simple, more clutter free life becomes more and more desirable. What ways can you or those you work with practice living with less clutter?
We are at a point in our lives when we set new priorities and explore what is REALLY important to us. We are learning to move from an outer focus to an inner focus and from a mind control orientation to a soul centered approach to life. We stop asking what do I want? and begin to ask, what does my soul want here? As we age, we can come to identify more with our soul than with our former roles. The aging process itself demands that we move from the acquiring, doing, achieving, manifesting, solidifying identity stage to learning to let go, and to be.
As we age, we learn to spend more time being and less time becoming prolific and productive. Spirituality teaches us that life is about BEING and not about DOING and one of the ways we learn that is by not being able to DO the things we did in the past. Most of the time we did things because of the FEELING that it brought us. So, as we age, we can look at incomplete goals or things we once enjoyed and ask, what FEELING am I looking for in this experience? Usually, we can find something or some way to achieve that same feeling from a different experience that is still available to us.
All through our spiritual lives we are taught about surrender and letting go. When we begin to experience life as being ‘taken away from us’ or ‘slipping away’, we can either panic, rebel, or deeply allow what is happening to happen. Of course, that doesn’t mean being passive about our health or about keeping intimate relationships alive, but it does mean that we get to recognize the impermanence of all that we have on this planet earth, while coming to KNOW and experience that life is truly eternal. When we get to glimpse that truth, our focus changes and we set different priorities. We realize that for certain, we cannot take it with us – when the ‘it’ are material possessions and while we treasure and appreciate them for what they are, we no longer feel ‘attached’. That’s ultimate spiritual growth and true freedom. I often encourage people I teach or council to write their own obituary and epitaph – and really discover what it is they are here for and what they want people to remember about them. I’ve even held memorial services with people while they are still alive and have them give their own eulogy. It’s a challenging but very profound experience
One of the jobs of the aging process, if you will, is to come face to face with the experience we call ‘death’ and to recognize that it is a continuation of our essence which we know of as Life. That’s pretty powerful stuff if we get it. So much of our youth is lived in denial that this life is only temporary, as we age, we can become aware of what is permanent and thereby discover that nothing can ever be truly lost. We rob the elderly of this experience if we avoid this conversation. I have been a volunteer with hospice for the past few years and have had some of the most profound conversations with people in their 90’s and 100 when they reflect on their beliefs about what happens after this life. I’ve learned so much from them and their willingness to have such conversations.
The spiritual journey is about going deeper and deeper to find that which does not change. The one thing we can be certain of as we age is faster change and in many instances, change is seen as synonymous with loss. The aging process itself is often viewed as a time of grief and loss. Besides letting go of old identities and abilities, it is often experiencing more and more deaths of loved ones. It can be a time of declining or loss of health. At the very least, it is the loss of things that are perceived of as youthful beauty – such as hair color, or even hair itself!
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer : To be attached to your physical appearance is to ensure a lifetime of suffering as you watch your form go through the natural motions that began the moment of your conception.
Certainly when we watch our parents and sometimes even our friends and children die, we learn of this life’s impermanence. Our grief is almost always about what could have been. Learning to grieve can be a true source of spiritual growth when viewed from this perspective.
Many of my clients have told me that they no longer fear death, (and that’s a great thing) but, what they fear is the process of dying. None of us like to suffer. And, spiritually speaking, we never have to. I am reminded of what an Indian guru once taught me while doing Yoga. We held some pretty challenging postures for quite a long time – or at least it seemed quite long to me! – He said to us, “change the label of pain to “sensation”. I’ll never forget those words. I use them frequently when my body decides to exhibit less than pleasant moments. Truly, suffering only comes when we push away and resist whatever we are experiencing. It is not what is happening that causes suffering, but what we are telling ourselves about what is happening. It’s never going to get better… I can’t go on with this… or other such statements.
Someone recently heard that I had shoulder pain and said – you must be struggling… I couldn’t help but laugh as I realized that so many people see pain as something to struggle or fuss about rather than simply our bodies signal that it wants us to come back to balance.
Our bodies are amazing that way. The problem we have with them getting older is an old spiritual problem of identification. Ask any Eastern spiritual teacher and he or she will say, “I am not my body.” You’ve probably heard that – and maybe even intellectually agreed to it- but when you start to experience what you label as ‘decline’ of the body, it is essential to remember that you are more than that. What a gift our bodies give us when we are ready to really hear that truth.
Maybe the pain that comes with the breakdown of bodily processes is especially tough on us as we age because we probably aren’t going to physically heal from many of these changes. They’re signs, reminders once again that we are so much more than our bodies, and the more we identify with the body, the more pain we’ll experience.
I have also found that having health issues as I age has really been an opportunity to help me transform. These experiences have challenged my beliefs about who I am and why I came here in the first place. They have also taught me another radically important spiritual lesson and that is the recognition that all of life is about interdependence, rather than independence. I have had times where I need help – something I never knew how to ask for or even sometimes believed I deserved. “I” was here to help others and in my ‘serving’ I often neglected the truth that others are served when I allow them to support me. I read recently that even the Buddha was awakened when he came face to face with an elderly sick person and with a corpse. If it hadn’t been for them, who knows what his life would have been! We can all be gifts to help others awaken.
Another part of awakening to our fullness is learning to live with the opposites that life presents. True maturity is about learning to live with the questions. Ultimate spiritual understanding leads us to a place of non-duality and living with questions is a way of practicing that life is not either-or, but often both –and.
I recently read an article from the diocese of Washington that talked about people’s experiences of aging – One person said
“As I age, I am less physically able to accomplish things I once did on my own. I now fear heights and can’t climb tall ladders. I have a hard time lifting heavy things without injury. But all this has made me more humble and more appreciative of the help that others can give. Gratitude and a proper sense of interdependence are a gift I have discovered with age. In the gift of age God has helped me be more grateful and connected to others.”
We are all One. We were often taught that it is better to give than to receive, but the truth is that Giving and Receiving are one. As we learn to ask for the help we need, we truly learn the meaning of interdependence. Needing help can also help us become more understanding of the struggles of others. I don’t know about you, but when I was young I was impatient. There was little I could not do, or at least thought I could not do. But, now, experiencing more of my limits both compassion and understanding have been awakened in me and I’m learning patience as well.
A few years ago, I had a hip replacement followed by a broken femur, infection and blood clots. It left me flat on my back for almost 3 months. During my time of rehab and healing, I learned to be grateful for the smallest things and for the care that others offered me in so many ways. I became more humble and appreciative of all those people who are ill or disabled who would never recover as I did.
There are so many unexpected gifts hidden in situations like this. The most important lesson I received was the message I got while lying immobile: “There is nowhere to go and nothing to do.” While that was literally true then, it has become my mantra every day when I find myself feeling overwhelmed or rushed or berating myself for not meeting a deadline or achieving a goal. Those words are worth pondering: There’s nowhere to go and nothing to do. I believe that’s what true enlightenment is all about. It’s a gift of grace.
I’ve even learned to be more grateful even for the gift of a brief rest. Naps are a great way to remind myself that there is nowhere to go and nothing to do!.
What are some of the other things that people fear about aging and what are the lessons that can be learned from the aging process? When you fear running out of money, ask yourself, what is true wealth and true abundance? You can’t take it with you after all. Have you defined yourself by the money you earn or by the things money has allowed you to accumulate? Who are you with or without money?
If you are downsizing, leaving a home for assisted living or nursing home, you can ponder the question: Where is our true home? Yes, living on this earth, it is nice to be surrounded by nice things and to have the safety and security of a roof over our heads. One 104 year old who was living in an assisted living facility often told me about the homes she once lived in – about the boats on the lake outside her window and about the long treks she took just to buy groceries. You know, she said, “I loved what I had – but I am so content with where I am now. I don’t need these things to be happy. It’s enough to remember all the good that has been part of my life and while it is different today, I still see it as good.”
She was one of the most conscious and content people I know and she taught me to learn to be satisfied with WHAT IS – instead of longing for what used to be or can no longer be. What a gift.
She also told me that she loved living alone and was NEVER lonely. “I have learned to love my own company. I was quite social in my younger years. I belonged to and ran lots of organizations. But, now, it’s time for me and I am enjoying every moment. I am part of all I’ve ever been.” What wisdom she taught us all. When you experience Loneliness begin to recognize that you can choose to see life lived a- lone or all one.
When your eye-sight gets weaker, rejoice in the new inner vision that can come upon you in this second half of life and look with great expectation to the even deeper vision as you change from an outer focus to a more inward quest. Learning to live more consciously is all about discovering or rediscovering that the interior life is the real life and can be far richer than any outer experience. And besides, it is lasting.
If your hearing begins to diminish, see it as a sign to listen more attentively and to look at others while they speak. This can serve to connect you more deeply to them. And learn to listen to the voice within – you’ll be amazed at what you can now hear when you shut out some of the outside noise.
Perhaps falling apart is just another way of letting go, of releasing our beliefs about ourselves and what we believe to be true. A main theme of the spiritual classic, the Bhagavad Gita, is the importance of learning to be unattached to the fruits of our labor, of emptying ourselves — I read once that it is about becoming teflon instead of velcro. Nature kindly assists us as we age, for as our mind and memories dim, it becomes a little easier to release the images we hold about who we are.
Finally I am gradually coming to realize that everything that happens to us in a life can be seen as a blessing, even the most devastating reverses. It’s all a matter of seeing it with the perspective of compassion and love. Spiritual vision allows us to see life as a treasure worth cherishing right up to our final breath. How are you handling the process yourself? Can you find ways to help others as well? Let’s share…
